Dam Safety

Preventing Australia
From Disasters.
By: Kulraj Kandel
 Student Id: 11138942

Faculty of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering

University of Technology Sydney

Table of Contains:

1. Introduction:

1A.Objective

2. Background:

2A.Use of Dams

2B.Safety

 Technical Compliance
 Administrative Compliance

2C.Importance of building safe dams

2D.Types of Dams and construction

 Embankment dams
 Gravity Dams

2E. Uses of dams in Australia and world

3. Summary and Conclusion

4. Sources and references

5. Appendix
1. Introduction:

Dams are artificial constructions which are intended to work as barriers to the natural
flow of water. They help to control the flow of water across the river or any other
waterway.

Dams can be constructed in various sizes depending on their purposes. They can be
made by making small embankments on earth for domestic and farm use or they can
be highly engineered massive construction units using concrete and other resources
which can be used for storage of water for drinking purpose, irrigation and
generation of hydro-electricity in large scale industrial purpose.

At the last count, there were around 40,000 large dams on the world’s rivers,
according to the International Commission on Large Dams (ICOLD).

A. Objective:

In this background research project, we will look mainly into building safe dams to
accommodate the need of water supply and energy need in the rural and urban parts
of NSW Australia and use those technologies in other parts of the world that includes
the developing countries in Asia like Indonesia and Nepal.

2. Background:

The earliest concept of dams was developed to supply water in the farms. They were
just as simple as using some kind of blocking objects to divert the flow of water
towards the farm.

The development of dam construction took gradual improvement over years where
dams were used for farming purposes to turning the wheel to grind corn and now are
used for multi-purpose such as water supply to large cities, control of flood, irrigation
in commercial basis, large scale hydro-electricity generation and even to facilitate
navigation and recreation.

A. Use of dams:

There are several reasons for the construction of dam .Based on the figures on what
the dams are used worldwide; the main reasons can be classified into following
percentage chart.

 Irrigation-48.6%
 Hydropower-17.4%
 Water supply-12.7%
 Flood Control-10%
 Recreation-5.3%
 Navigation and fish farming-0.6%
 Others- 5.4%.

B. Safety:

“With the exception of nuclear power plants, no man-made structure has a greater

potential for killing a large number of people than a dam.”

Joseph Ellam, Pennsylvania State Director of Dam Safety, 1987

Safety is the major part of any project. As dams are considered to be critical and
very necessary part of the development infrastructure, they must comply with various
requirements to make sure that they are safe, economical and effective to operate.

The requirements of the structural design, construction and the ways to operate can
be classified into following sub headings:
  Technical Compliance:
 The dam itself and the foundation must be safe and should be able to bear
the load in normal and extreme conditions such as overfilling and natural
disasters like flood and earthquake.
 The dam should have extra capacity then its normal operation to cover the
excess amount of water flowing through it.
 The dam should have adequate leakage control measures in use. Under no
circumstances a functional dam be leaking because water has its natural
power to break through small leak and turn it into a big failure.
 The dam should have enough spillway for the water to escape in the event of
floods or overtopping.

 Administrative compliance:
 Risk assessments in case of emergency and possible ways to minimize the
effects in case of dam failure.
 A proper manual to operate and conduct the planned and unplanned
maintenance of the dam.
 Hazard logs retaining all the identified and possible hazards located in the
dam and its surrounding throughout the lifespan of dam from the point of
construction.
 Incident reports indicating any incidents and near misses due to any reasons
like construction techniques or malfunction of any parts of features of the
dam.
 The regular and periodic surveillance and monitoring of the dam and its
functional structures.

In addition to these, safety of dam in any state or country is a legal obligation to the
country. The country constructing a dam is bounded by international laws and
obligations for its safety. Failure to comply with required standards and not paying
enough attention on the safety aspects of dam is against the international treaties in
water management. Not co-operating with outer world in these aspects can lead a
country/state to stand alone and thus adversely affect on the support from other
nations so hampers any further development activities in that nation.

C. Importance of building safe dams:

As dams are used to confine large amount of water, failure of a dam can be a
disaster. Since dam failures can occur suddenly and without any long term
indication, it can be a cause of great unexpected disaster and can claim thousands
of lives and millions of dollar worth of damage.

Another reason for construction of safe dams is that, not only the dam has effect on
itself and the water it holds to create disaster, but dams has significant social,
environmental and economic importance. For example, in a drought country like
Australia, dams are the main source of water supply. Just dropping the water level
by 50% in Australian dams, the water restrictions goes on higher levels, so it’s fairly
hard to imagine what would be the circumstance if the dam suddenly fails. In that
case people will not only die because of the flood, but we will end up with having no
supply of water to accommodate our biological, household and industrial needs. The
socio-economic effect will be more devastation them the short term disaster effect.

Hence it’s really important to have more digging done on research about where,
when and how the dam will be constructed before digging the actual dams.

D. Types of Dams:

Dams can be classified into various types based on their structures and the material
used in their construction:

Embankment:

Most of the dams in the world that cover around 80% of large dams are of this
nature. These types of dams are made of soil and rocks. Hence they are cost
effective and very popular.

Gravity Dams:

These dams are mostly made with concrete and using modern techniques. These
are mainly useful to confine water flow in narrow valleys. These are expensive to
construct and accounts for small percentage of major dams around the world.

E. Use of Dams in Australia:

In Australia water supply for drinking and industrial purposes is the main reason
dams are constructed. Unlike most reasons of the world Australia uses rain water to
fill the dams with water. There are some major dams which accounts for more than
70% of water supply in Australia.

Also, as one of the most important uses of dams is to generate hydro-power,

Australia is not exclusion to this.

Hydro-electricity is a good source of renewable energy. To generate hydro-electricity

rain water or water from rivers is captured in dams. The released water can move
turbines to generate electricity and further can be used for irrigation and water
supply.

Working Mechanism:

The water is collected in dams, which is allowed to flow downstream, which rotates
the turbines and the dynamos generate electricity.

The force of water due to gravitational force is enormously strong which enables to
rotate large generators. Using multiple dams, the falling water can be used number
of times to generate electricity.

Unlike using windmills and tides, the flow of water can be increased or decreased
according to the energy demands, hence can be very useful to accommodate the
peak-hour need of electricity.

Hydro-electricity is considerably a good source of renewable energy. Lots of dams in

NSW and Tasmania have been useful for generating hydro-power. But having very
less number of rivers and being typically dry for most of the times, Australia has very
few options to generate hydro-electricity in large scale.

But construction of these kind of dams in countries like Indonesia and Nepal, where
there are large rivers flowing down the hills with high speed, which makes them
potentially good regions for generating hydro –power can be real beneficial for the
development of those countries.
Advantages of generating hydro-electricity from Dams:

 Hydro-electricity is the renewable source of energy, so use of fuel is reduced

and the cost is not affected by any price fluctuations.
 There are no any bi-products on its production so it is pollution free energy
generation.
 The dams used for production of hydro-electricity can be used as multi-
purpose dams, i.e. irrigation and water supply.
 Long term labour cost is low because it does not require lots of human power
on the production cycle, since job is done mostly by water itself.

On the other hand, there are few disadvantages:

 Construction cost of hydro-power projects is very high. Huge amount of

budget is required for the construction of dams and turbines.
 Dams affect the natural water eco-system, including reduction of water
creatures.
 Failure of dams can be devastating.

3. Summary and Conclusion:

 There is a fixed amount of water in the water cycle and that only a small
quantity of fresh water is available for human consumption.

 The water shortages in many regions of the world will increase significantly.

 Reliable supplies of water will be needed to improve the state of health in the
world and to increase the agricultural and industrial productivity.

 Throughout the history of the world, dams have played a major role in storing
and managing water needed to support civilization.

 More digging on research about the type and location of dams to ensure dam
safety before actually digging the dam.

 A single dam can be used for multipurpose like hydro-electricity and irrigation.
  In context of Australia dams are more suitable for supply of drinking water but
in developing countries it is highly effective way of economic growth by
production of hydro-electricity.

4. References:

ANCOLD 2003,Guidelines on Dam Safety Management,

Australian National Committee on Large Dams.

Bradlow,D. Palmeiri,A.Salman, M.A.2002,’Regulatory frameworks of dam safety:A

comprehensive study by world bank law justice and development series,The World
Bank.

Guggenheim,S.2006,’crisis and contradctions:understanding the origins of a

community development project in Indonesia’,in A.J.Bebbinton(ed.),The search for
empowerment,Kumarian press,Bloomfield USA

Himsley, N.2003, International Commission on Large Dams. ‘Guidelines on dam

safety management by Australian National Committee on Large Dams’,  Australian
National Committee on Large Dams

Ingles, O. G. 1984, ‘A Short Study of Dam Failures in

Australia, 1857-1983’, Civil Engineering Systems Journal, Vol.1, June, pp. 190-194.

Lake, P.S. 2007. Flowing waters in the landscape. In "Managing and Designing
Landscapes for Conservation" (eds., D.B.Lindenmayer and R.J.Hobbs) Blackwell
Publishing and Zoological Society of London